New season, new message, new vision. It works for baseball, so why not health care?
Highmark Health, the Pittsburgh-based insurer and hospital network that happens to be a Pirates sponsor, has chosen the ever-optimistic launch of a new baseball season to slide in the start of a corporate marketing pitch meant to mark a shift from the discouraging past.
“Our customers need health care to be different,” CEO David Holmberg said Friday before the new campaign created by Detroit agency Doner began its scheduled launch this week in TV, radio, print, billboards and online spots.
“It’s all about positivity,” Mr. Holmberg said, acknowledging that consumers are frustrated with the ongoing dispute between Highmark and rival Pittsburgh health giant UPMC. “It’s really about changing the tone.”
Doner, which won the marketing account earlier this year with the pitch that led to this campaign, has crafted separate but coordinated messages for the company’s Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance business and for its Allegheny Health Network provider network assembled in recent years as a counterpoint to UPMC.
The insurance side tagline will be “All for health,” with the idea that everything the dominant insurer in Pittsburgh does is to help people live healthy lives and get the coverage that they need, said David DeMuth, CEO of the advertising agency.
The health provider side’s symbiotic tagline will be “Health for all,” delivering the message that AHN wants to serve everybody.
“We didn’t take an oath to help some of the people,” said Mr. DeMuth, explaining the thinking behind the phrasing. “We took an oath to help all of the people.”
One of the ongoing battles between UPMC and Highmark has been about which insurance customers can go to which doctors and hospitals for care. The new Highmark Health campaign doesn’t mention any rivals specifically, but consumers are likely to pick up on the underlying message.
Of course, the new campaign isn’t just about the Western Pennsylvania region, noted Mr. Holmberg. The company also has millions of customers in West Virginia, Delaware and across Pennsylvania.
Doner shot the commercials in recent weeks both in Pittsburgh and in Erie, said Mr. DeMuth.
The first phase of the campaign will last about three months, with spots shifting after that to feature more specific insurance products or to draw attention to certain types of care available at AHN facilities.
Mr. Holmberg is well aware that marketing blitzes of recent years — from both Highmark and UPMC — have upset people and he said he was sorry for the situation. He noted that when he took over the CEO job last May, he quickly suspended negative marketing being done for Highmark.
In an increasingly consumer-centric health care environment, he said the focus now is on telling customers and clients how Highmark Health will help them get the care they need.
“We’re not encumbered by having lots and lots of hospitals we have to feed,” Mr. Holberg said, later adding, “Unlike other folks, our approach is from beginning to end.”
Given time, a positive marketing message could start to change perceptions in the region, said Bob Gilbert, marketing and business professor at the University of Pittsburgh, who hadn’t yet seen the campaign materials.
But it could take a lot of time, and any resumption of the shouting match between UPMC and Highmark might sidetrack the effort, Mr. Gilbert said. “There will still be some initial skepticism,” he said.
Kantar Media, a marketing research firm in New York City, tracked $11.7 million in advertising spending by Highmark in 2012, but more than $25 million in 2014. UPMC, the firm’s data found, spent $8.6 million on advertising in 2012, but $15 million last year.
Highmark did not disclose its budget for the new marketing campaign.
First Published: April 13, 2015, 1:18 p.m.
Updated: April 14, 2015, 12:11 a.m.
